The second volume of keyboard music by the reclusive Carl Fasch contains two unpublished sonatas (one in the unusual key of B flat minor) and his considerable output of “character pieces”, short descriptive works which justify contemporary opinion that he was the true successor to C. P. E. Bach. These individual vignettes are ideal for playing on either the clavichord or the fortepiano and provide an expressive foil to the first volume’s more extended and extrovert sonatas.

The image on the front cover is a reproduction of The Music Party by Johann Jakob Haid (Kleineslingen, 1704 – Augsburg, 1767). Drawing, pen and ink wash, heightened in white, 14.5 x 20.5 cm; faintly squared for engraving, probably in mezzotint. Collection of Christopher Hogwood.